


Ace of Hearts

by RBCQ



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:24:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RBCQ/pseuds/RBCQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katya had always been alone. That was how she preferred it, she tried to tell herself, with a cigarette between her lips and the remnants of last night's alcohol still on her breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ace of Hearts

Katya had always been alone. That was how she preferred it, she tried to tell herself, with a cigarette between her lips and the remnants of last night's alcohol still on her breath. She didn't mind the fact that for so long, she had fallen asleep night after night with an empty bed and an emptier heart, trying to ignore the wet spots on her pillow that she refused to admit were from tears. She didn't _care_ , she told herself, as she stole another bottle of vodka from her parents and drank until nothing made sense anymore. Not that it ever did, in this country that she was thrown into without warning, but the vodka numbed her and that was all Katya cared about. Moving here, in the middle of winter in her freshman year, had been a mistake. She had smiled and told her parents it was alright, she didn't mind, in halting English and an accent thicker than the lies she had been telling her whole life, but it really wasn't. The teachers didn't understand her, the kids made fun of her, and more often than not, Katya came home to look up words that had been flung at her across a hallway, only to discover that they cut deeper in Russian than they ever could in English.

 

She stopped looking up words in the spring of sophomore year. Her English had gotten better and Katya tried to tell herself she stopped trying to figure out what the things they were calling her meant because she stopped caring, but the reality was she stopped searching them and started understanding. Her smile was ever-present, and she laughed off every taunt that was flung her way, snapping back in Russian, but when she went to the bathroom all Katya could do was try to silence her sobs as she sat curled up on the floor.

 

She stopped crying the summer between sophomore and junior year. Her parents tried everything, therapist after therapist and pill after pill, but nothing pulled Katya out of her room, nothing made her smile like she used to. Katya locked herself away inside herself in a place not even _she_ could find. It was safer there. More comfortable there. She didn't have to care about anything, didn't have to worry about anything. The next year passed quickly, and Katya doesn't remember much of it. Maybe it was because it started to get better, Katya tried to believe, and there wasn't any reason to really remember. It wasn't terrible and wasn't wonderful, but what did it matter, anyways? She couldn't feel the difference anymore. Katya was invincible - top of her class, feared by some and the other's taunts didn't bother her anymore, until they stopped using words as weapons and started using their fists, and she couldn't remember the last time she really smiled.

 

She started coming home with black eyes and bloody lips in the spring of her junior year. Her parents begged her to tell them what was going on, and when Katya ignored them in favor of her books, they went to the school. The school pulled Katya out of her classes and asked her what was going on, who was doing this to her, but Katya stayed silent, refusing to speak a single word. She had given up on English by now, and nobody would understand her Russian anyways, so why bother? They brought in a translator, a psychiatrist, anybody and everybody they could think of to pull words from the hollow-eyed blonde, but she just shook her head and left the room. Even when she was broken and bloody on the floor after a group of boys had cornered her, Katya refused to say a word, enduring their kicks and punches without a single sound.

 

She started smoking that summer. She found that cigarettes helped her forget, at least for a little while, about the bruises littering her body, about the cuts and bruises scattered around her skin. Cigarettes gave Katya something to focus on between books, and she appreciated that. Maybe being alone wasn't that bad, she thought to herself. It couldn't be that bad, if the rest of the world hated her. What else could there be? She had her books and her cigarettes, and that was all Katya needed.

 

Until she met Trixie, the blonde-haired girl that appeared on the first day of senior year, the one that sat in front of her in French. She had moved there from across the country, Katya quickly learned. That was something Katya was good at, learning things. She listened to everyone else because they thought she couldn't understand them. She started listening to the girls that sat two rows behind her in French and learned where the group of boys that liked to beat her would be that day, trying to catch the 'Russian bitch'. They giggled and gossiped and Katya learned how to avoid coming home with fresh wounds. Soon, all her bruises faded, and Katya started to feel real things again. In the absence of physical pain, something had to fill it - and all those emotions that she had locked away came flooding back. Katya was helpless to stop them.

 

She started drinking the day after Trixie turned around and asked her to borrow a pencil, two weeks into the school year. Katya looked at her face for the first time, and she hated the feeling that rose up in her chest. It was warm, and it made Katya feel weak. She hated feeling weak more than she hated anything else. She didn't feel weak when the boys were beating her - they never got what they wanted, and Katya was never afraid. That was strength and bravery. This was weak, and she fucking despised it. She found a bottle of vodka in the back of the downstairs fridge, and when it burned the back of her throat, Katya started to feel strong again. For a few days, she only drank at night, right before she went to sleep, to dull her dreams so she could sleep through the night. A cigarette and a few sips of vodka, that was how it started, at midnight when everyone else was asleep. Then, it became a few sips before she left for school so she didn't have to swallow back the warmth when she saw Trixie in French, and before she had hit the halfway point in the school year, Katya was bringing water bottles full of it to class and sneaking sips when the teacher wasn't looking.

 

She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd spoken. Katya didn't even remember what her voice sounded like, it had been years since she had even said hello to her own parents, the people that had raised her back in Russia and then taken her to this strange and unforgiving place. Russian or English, it didn't matter. Somehow, Trixie understood this. She fit in about as well as Katya did - that is to say, a blonde sore thumb that didn't really get the world around them. Trixie was different, though. She didn't push Katya away, didn't shut her out or try to pry words from between her tightly-shut lips. Maybe that was why they got along so well, in perfect silence that somehow felt full. When their class was told to work with a partner, Trixie turned around in her seat with a nod and a smile, and Katya had to pull out her bottle and take several long gulps to get rid of the warmth that rose in her chest. There were no words used, and none were needed. That was how Katya liked it, and Trixie seemed to be okay with it.

 

Maybe her silence was what drew Trixie to Katya. She didn't really know why the other girl liked her so much, or what she really found interesting in the way Katya always had her nose in a book and a bellyful of vodka. When Trixie found her behind the school, under the bleachers, reading a book and smoking a cigarette, Katya didn't even look up. The two of them sat there, Trixie on her computer and Katya smoking and reading, until her cigarette was gone. But, instead of leaving to walk home like she normally would, Katya took another sip of vodka - her liquid strength - and lit a second cigarette. Maybe Trixie caught on, maybe she didn't, but the second Katya pulled another cigarette from her pack and produced a lighter from her bag, she looked up and smiled, oh god, she _smiled_ , and Katya's heart stopped. She spent the rest of that cigarette alternating between taking drags and taking sips from her bottle.

 

Maybe their shared silence was what laid the trail of bread crumbs for Trixie to follow back to Katya's house that night, maybe the never-ending silence that stretched between them was the catalyst that lead to Trixie following Katya through her front door and into her room. Maybe that catalyst was what lead to the bottle of vodka that they passed between them, Katya's music blaring in the too-empty room as they drank and drank until Trixie was giggling and babbling about everything and nothing, the color of the sky, the color of Katya's eyes, the girls three rows behind her and two behind Katya, the sun and the carpet and everything in between. Maybe that bottle of vodka was what gave Katya the strength to stand up and pull the drunk girl with her, except was she really that drunk or was she just acting, and spin her around. Maybe it was what lead to Katya first smiling, then laughing, then blurting out the first words she had spoken in so many years - words that she didn't even remember anymore because as soon as they left her lips they were replaced with Trixie's mouth. Maybe that kiss was what started their tumble down that steep, slippery slope, because Katya had a bellyful of liquid strength and she wasn't weak enough to be afraid, and maybe her strength was what lead to them sharing the night together, Russian music enveloping them and hiding the noises they shared, the kisses and most importantly, how Katya felt when Trixie gasped her name like that.

 

Katya tried to tell herself that she preferred being alone, with the taste of last night's vodka still on her tongue and a cigarette between her lips, but with Trixie still snoring softly next to her, she couldn't help but smile and know, deep down, that she preferred having her life full of the wonderful blonde that sat in front of her in French.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Queen of Hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7394449) by [LinRiverSongBeifong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinRiverSongBeifong/pseuds/LinRiverSongBeifong)




End file.
